


Until Christmas

by magneticdice



Series: A Very, Merry Gallavich Christmas [7]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:46:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magneticdice/pseuds/magneticdice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey searches for a hoodie and finds something else</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> this is a sad one; sorry.

**Until Christmas**

Mickey had been looking everywhere for his navy cutoff hoodie. For the hundredth time, his wife's constant nagging about them needing to come up with a better laundry system rang in his ears. He checked all of the drawers, the closet, the bedroom floor, and even the living room, to no avail. Frustrated after almost twenty minutes spent searching for it, Mickey decided to try the last place he would think to look: underneath the bed.

He got down on his knees and pressed his cheek to the floor. There was enough dust under there for even Mickey to be embarrassed. He used the light from his cell phone to see past the ordinary clutter of long-forgotten shoes, crushed beer cans and cigarette butts. There, all the way in the back left corner, was his sweater. He wondered how the fuck had it gotten all the way there.

Mickey inched closer to pull it out but his fingers could barely graze it. Annoyed, he got up and looked around the room for something long to use to his advantage. His eyes settled on the white cane hanging on his wall. He vaguely remembered stealing the walking stick from a blind kid at school that he'd terrorized some years back. Who would have thought that someday the crap he'd accumulated throughout his youth would become useful. He opened the stick and used it to pull his sweater forward. 

Once within grasp, he pulled the navy hoodie out, but something heavy dropped from inside it. Mickey righted himself and sat cross-legged on the floor beside his bed and examined the object his hoodie had clearly been wrapped around. It was a brown paper bag. Excited, thinking one of his brothers had used his bed to hide some drugs, Mickey held it upside down and let the contents drop out onto his lap.

It was a box with a post-it on it. In Ian's sloppy handwriting, it said “Do NOT Open Until Christmas!!!”

Mickey suddenly found it impossible to swallow past the lump that had formed in his throat. Christmas was in just two weeks... but Gallagher had fucked off to the army over a month ago, and he and Mickey hadn't really spoken since right before the wedding. 

Mickey's heart was pounding in his chest, the way it did every time he thought about Gallagher and how they'd ended things... He tried to think back to when he'd last worn the hoodie, and vaguely remembered having it on a few days before Gallagher had slept over that one time... 

That must have been when he'd put the box under the bed, probably grabbing whatever dirty clothes he'd seen on the floor at the time and using it to wrap the bag up. That meant the gift had been there for months, lost in the shuffle when they'd reorganized the bedroom after the wedding.

Mickey took a deep breath to calm down. It didn't work. He tried again.

He'd gotten used to the sudden panic that would overtake him. Alcohol would usually help him get through it. That was what he needed. More alcohol. He slipped the box into the paper bag and slowly wrapped it back up in his hoodie. 

He decided he would leave it there until Gallagher told him about it, or until he wasn't around to tell him about it—whichever came first. 

The bottle of Jack next to his bed didn't stand a chance.


End file.
